About a Baby

JULIE John­ston’s pas­sion for ama­teur theatre didn’t take a back­seat when she be­came a first-time mother.

Ms John­ston said she was an ad­vo­cate for moth­ers main­tain­ing a sense of in­di­vid­u­al­ity out­side of fam­ily re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

She said al­though her fam­ily was her pri­or­ity, sus­tain­ing her in­ter­est in theatre was vi­tal for her sense of well­be­ing.

‘‘ For me per­son­ally, I feel I’m a bet­ter mother and wife by hav­ing a hobby out­side of my fam­ily du­ties,’’ the mother of Ri­ley, 15 months, said.

Ms John­ston is in­volved with com­mu­nity theatre group, the Out­back Play­ers, which is per­form­ing its new theatre restau­rant Pi­rates of the Co­ral Sea on Fri­day and Satur­day, and April 1 and 2, at the Aitken­vale PCYC.

Ms John­ston is not the only first-time par­ent in­volved in the Out­back Play­ers.

Pi­rates of the Co­ral Sea’s mu­sic di­rec­tor Cory Olsen’s wife Noni just gave birth to a baby boy Se­bastien two weeks ago, so Mr Olsen has been jug­gling his re­hearsal com­mit­ments around the new­est ad­di­tion to his fam­ily.

‘‘ I met Tracey and Amy at the new baby course at the Kir­wan Health Cam­pus 15 months ago and we have main­tained a firm friend­ship and sup­port to each other,’’ she said.

‘‘ It’s nice that our bond has ex­panded to other things be­sides just talk­ing about ba­bies in our moth­ers group. While meet­ing other mums to talk about ba­bies has its place and is im­por­tant, so is meet­ing other peo­ple and other mums and not talk­ing about ba­bies. It’s about achiev­ing a bal­ance.’’ Ms Cole­man, mother to Ru­bie, agreed. ‘‘ It’s a re­ally good cre­ative out­let to ‘ get away from it all’,’’ she said.

‘‘ I’m a sin­gle mum and had a year off to look af­ter my daugh­ter and found that go­ing back to work part time, I needed to do some­thing for me to get out there and meet new peo­ple. I made it a New Year’s res­o­lu­tion to get into things and start do­ing things that make me happy and to also help get me out of the ‘‘ mum role’’ that can to­tally take over your life if you let it.’’ tions for a cre­ative out­let out­side the home,’’ she said.

‘‘ Af­ter spend­ing time with the Out­back Play­ers, I come back home feel­ing re­freshed and in­vig­o­rated.’’ Tick­ets are still avail­able for the up­com­ing shows. Con­tact 0457 284 800 for de­tails.